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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

This is a bit like denying the English King Arthur because the bulk of them are descended from the Saxons that King Arthur was supposed to have been fighting.

Our connection to the land is no less real than our connection to our ancestors from 2000+ years ago—both are largely social constructs, made up of stories that we tell with our modern friends and family. I don't see any compelling reason to say that the modern Greeks are more entitled to Alexander's legacy than the modern Macedonians, given that neither ethnic group is actually descended from Alexander (his family was all murdered) and neither culture bears any resemblance to the culture of Alexander.

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> I don't see any compelling reason to say that the modern Greeks are more entitled to Alexander's legacy than the modern Macedonians, given that neither ethnic group is actually descended from Alexander (his family was all murdered) and neither culture bears any resemblance to the culture of Alexander.

So Italians are not any more entitled to Caesar's Legacy than the Japanese because Caesar lived thousand of years ago?

Modern Greeks are descendents of Ancients Greeks while modern Northern Macedonians are not. Alexander was an Ancient Greek living in Ancient Macedonia.

> Italians are not any more entitled to Caesar's Legacy than the Japanese

If the Japanese settled in Italy in the 500s AD and lived there for 1500 years telling stories about Caesar and spent centuries adopting him as an honorary forefather, yeah, I'd say they were entitled to his legacy. It's not like he's around to mind.

The modern French identify strongly with the Gauls (to the point where most Gallic scholarship is in French) even though their language is of Latin descent and they're mostly descended from the Germanic tribes that came later.

The modern English identify strongly with the early Britons (to the point where their largest folk hero is the King of the Britons) even though they're mostly descended from the very people who displaced them.

This is just a pattern applied across the world every time nations migrate. I'm going to need a better explanation than a Japanese straw man for why the North Macedonians shouldn't be entitled to the same kind of folk-hero appropriation that the English are.

Slav's didn't spend 1500 years telling stories about Alexander the Great, they have their own heritage. The first claim to the heritage of Alexander came from Northern Macedonia (formerly a province of Yugoslavia) in the 1990s for the reasons the article states.

> This is just a pattern applied across the world every time nations migrate.

So then I guess if you were a Native American and modern Americans claimed to be descendents of Geronimo you wouldn't find it ridiculous? It's factually wrong.

> Slav's didn't spend 1500 years telling stories about Alexander the Great

It seems that they did, as much as anyone else in Europe at that time. Slavic versions of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Romance (which was the main way the story of Alexander the Great was known in folklore) appear quite early.

Demosthenes was an Ancient Greek who called the Macedons barbaroi, as in, not Greek. That's pretty clear-cut. He went as far as to say that Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great "... is not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, but not even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honour, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, whence it was never yet possible to buy a decent slave".

Macedons spoke the Greek language. Philip's and Alexander's names are Greek. Philip launched a successful military campaign to unite all Greeks. Are you seriously arguing that Philip and Alexander were Slavs?

> Are you seriously arguing that Philip and Alexander were Slavs?

Could you lay off the straw men and try to address the actual argument?

I just explained why they were Greek, do you have anything constructive to add?

But the ancient greeks considered them not greek. They wouldnt let them compete at the olympics either.

However, if we hypothesize that in similarity how the ancient macedonians started becoming roman and byzantine after, the same way they were actually assimilated into being slavs and mixed with them, because the slavs were in fact very open minded who was a slav and who wasnt, then we could say that the genetic line is there and in fact lots of people in the balkans and anatolia and south italy trace greek heritage.

The slavs from russia and ural are very different looking than the balkan slavs. In addition, you dont see many ethnic hungarians that look asian, even though the initial magyars were asian nomads. Same with bulgaria, the bulgars were asian nomads from the steppe, but hardly any ethnic bulgarians look asian. Meaning, the initial conquerors were a minority group being overlords or leaders of a majority local natives, who then got assimilated.

The mixing of peoples was there. The genetic trace is there. But the political rhetoric is crazy.

> But the ancient greeks considered them not greek. They wouldnt let them compete at the olympics either.

Says who? Citation needed.

Démosthenés for one? Did you not read the OP? Also Wikipedia mentions this multiple times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Macedonians

Gosh nationalism was stupid back then and remains stupid nowadays.

I commented on Demosthenes.

Wikipedia as a source for a highly heated political matter like this? Talk about stupid things. And keep your moronic assumptions about how I am a nationalist to yourself.

They spoke Greek, they worshipped the same Gods, they did participate in the Olympics. Everything about them was Greek. There are coins with Alexander's name where the name is written exactly as I write it today, in Greek, down to the letter and to the stroke.

And maybe do some research on what Alexander himself considered his region and himself as. I am sure you would want to respect that.

I understand the need of a state to create some kind of coherent narrative to keep itself together, but enough with this charade.

"Gosh"...

You know Wikipedia has citations right?

> When Alexander I of Macedon petitioned to compete in the foot race of the ancient Olympic Games, the event organizers at first denied his request, explaining that only Greeks were allowed to compete. However, Alexander I produced proof of an Argead royal genealogy showing ancient Argive Temenid lineage, a move that ultimately convinced the Olympic Hellanodikai authorities of his Greek descent and ability to compete, although this did not necessarily apply to common Macedonians outside of his royal dynasty

Badian, Ernst (1982). "Greeks and Macedonians". Studies in the History of Art. SYMPOSIUM SERIES I. 10. National Gallery of Art: 33–51. JSTOR 42617918

I didn't say you are nationalist, just that it's a stupid concept. It was stupid from "mainstream" ancient Greeks to exclude ancient Makedonians and it's stupid to argue who can claim Alexander nowadays. In every state ancient or modern, every inhabitant is a genetic melange and even though there is usually some major culture there are minorities which are often excluded by the jingoistic narrative.

"Alexander" ("Aleksandros") and "Philip" ("Philippos") are very Greek names though. They are composite words with very clear meanings which any Greek with basic literacy can understand, because they use "αλέξι-", "άνδρας", "φίλος" and "ίππος" every day. This sounds more clear-cut than an instance of Greeks from different regions shitting on each other.

In any case, the notion that the people of North Macedonia have anything to do with Alexander is laughable, as Kiro Gligorov himself stated.

>This is a bit like denying the English King Arthur because the bulk of them are descended from the Saxons that King Arthur was supposed to have been fighting

No, it's more like denying WASP Americans the native american heritage. Even ignoring the clouded history between the two groups, the former simply came later and have nothing to do with it.

>I don't see any compelling reason to say that the modern Greeks are more entitled to Alexander's legacy than the modern Macedonians, given that neither ethnic group is actually descended from Alexander (his family was all murdered).

The claims of legacy is not about having Alexander's family DNA - it's about historical tracing and culture and so on. In any case, even DNA wise, ancient to modern Greeks are quite close according to related studies (and unlike some western racist prejudices in the past centuries, dismissing modern Greeks right to their ancestry).

>and neither culture bears any resemblance to the culture of Alexander

Says who? Greeks have been speaking and developing the Greek culture and language since before the times of Alexander. And Greek vocabulary as developed at the time of Alexander's expansion, is still easily understood by modern Greeks.

Things did change, as they do everywhere - a culture changed after 2.3 millenia of development, is not the same as it being something alien that came from nowhere.

Does 16th or even 19th century US culture look like the modern one, if seen superficially? Not. However if traced back, and seen as a series of historical developments, it's a specific stream, discreet than say Mexican or Canadian culture or whatever. And that's just a few centuries. And of course, there being a big difference to 2024 US culture to 1780 US culture doesn't mean current Americans don't have a claim to the Founding Fathers, or Poe, or Mark Twain or whatever - or that suddenly Canadians can lay claim to those things.

> neither culture bears any resemblance to the culture of Alexander.

Language, to name just one, maybe the most important component of a culture.

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